TMN: Hey Benny! First off – thank you for being a part of our Residency program. It’s an honor to have a legend like you onboard. Let’s kick things off by talking about Danceaholic, which is currently smashing up the charts. Talk to us about how you approached this project as a whole.
BB: I’m very fond of the instrumental track “Danceaholic” which lends its name to the whole album because it takes me back to my roots and projects me forwards at the same time. The album is a bigger project of course. It’s a mixture of tracks that were already released and brand new material, so it’s a kind of a bridge between the last four or five years and where I’m going!
TMN: You have an eclectic group of artists with you on the album, including singer/songwriter legends like Chris Brown and John Legend, as well as a nice collection of other producers. How did you go about selecting who you wanted to work with?
BB: I work first and foremost collaborate with my cousin Alle Benassi. He’s my musician and producer. But I really love working with different collaborators. Chris Brown is such a great artist. Everything he sings just comes to life and is amazing. Since working together on “Beautiful People” we have an artistic relationship and always feel free to send ideas to each other, that’s how ‘Paradise’ came about. As for John Legend I met him through a mutual friend of Alle and I, Jean Baptiste, in LA, who was working with John at the time, then we performed together at Coachella and we just knew we’d collaborate on the new album.
